Michigan ranks 8th in nation in Obamacare signups

Michigan was the eighth most successful state in enrolling people under the Affordable Care Act from Oct. 1 through April 19, officials with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said today in a telephone news conference with reporters.

The rankings are based on the 36 states that participate in HHS' healthcare.gov website and those 15 states managing their own exchanges, also called marketplaces.

Of the 5.4 million people who signed up on healthcare.gov, 272,539 were Michiganders. More than 970,000 Floridians signed up, the highest number of any state that participated on healthcare.gov. Texas was next at 733,000, followed by North Carolina with 357,000, Pennsylvania with 318,000 and Georgia with 316,000, according to the report.

Michigan also is below two of the states that run their own exchanges, California with 1.4 million and New York with 370,000 signees.

Dizzy Warren, Michigan Consumers for Healthcare

Dizzy Warren, statewide community outreach manager with Michigan Consumers for Healthcare, said the large number of Michigan residents who signed up for Obamacare health policies is a tribute to the hundreds of people who assisted the uninsured with the application process.

"It is a fitting tribute to the hard work of navigators, assisters, health care providers, and many other community partners statewide," said Warren, who also is state director of Enroll Michigan.

Warren said Enroll Michigan has worked with hundreds of organizations, including the city of Detroit, Detroit Medical Center, Michigan Primary Care Association, the Michigan Health & Hospital Association, St. John Providence Health System, St. Joseph Mercy Health System, Beaumont Health System and Oakwood Healthcare.

More than 1,400 events were held over the past several months to reach more than 111,000 people, Warren said.

Outgoing HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she was happy with the overall numbers of Americans gaining health insurance. She said many now have security with the knowledge their policy won't be canceled due to a pre-existing condition.

During the first six months of Obamacare enrollment, nearly 13 million people signed up for coverage overall, including 5.4 million on healthcare.gov, 2.6 million through state exchanges and 4.8 million through Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

"Americans continue to sign up for Medicaid coverage," she said. "We hope more states come on board."

However, HHS still apparently has no idea how many of these insurance enrollees actually paid their premiums. Moreover, HHS did not say how many were previously uninsured.

Still, Sebelius said more good news is that another 3 million Americans under 26 years old are covered under their parents" plans and estimates show an additional 5 million people have purchased coverage in the private market.

It is also not clear how many of those people were forced to purchase health insurance because their previous policy, which was noncomplaint with the Affordable Care Act, was cancelled. Obama later asked insurers to extend or reinstate the older policies, which do not include all the 10 essential health benefits but were policies many people said they "liked," and in many instances were less expensive.

Another interesting statistic is 28 percent of those who signed up are between the ages of 18 and 34, the so-called "young invincibles." Insurance companies were worried not enough younger people would participate in the marketplace to balance out actuarial risks of older folks who use physician and hospital services more often.

The next enrollment period begins Nov. 15 for coverage that starts Jan. 1.

By then, we should know how many folks actually purchased insurance, and we will know whether insurance companies achieved windfall profits, average profits or losses under the insurance expansion.

We should also have a better idea how much more expensive health insurance premiums were in 2014 compared with previous years rate hikes for single coverage of 14 percent in 2002 and 8 percent in 2012, said the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Interestingly, Wellpoint said in a statement this week that 2015 premiums for its marketplace business will be less than the "double-digit plus" it had predicted. Wellpoint is one of the largest players on health insurance exchanges, with more than 1 million customers.

Analysts also were upbeat in Wellpoint's profitability expectations.

"Obamacare is continuing to play out as a favorable growth driver for the company," Ana Gupte, an industry analyst with Leerink Partners.